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HOUSE DEFEATS AMASH’S NSA AMENDMENT – In a narrow vote, the House defeated an amendment that would have defunded that NSA’s massive phone data gathering program. The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Hughes and Siobhan Gorman report: “House lawmakers on Wednesday defeated an attempt to drastically curb a national-security program that collects the phone records of millions of Americans, after a tense debate on the balance between privacy rights and government efforts to find terrorists.

“The measure was narrowly defeated, 205-217, after last-minute lobbying by the Obama administration and House members on the intelligence panel, who said the program was crucial to national security. House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who doesn't often cast a ballot, voted against the amendment, reflecting nervousness among opponents about whether they would be able to defeat the bill.” http://on.wsj.com/136rgjd

-- HOW IT HAPPENED: POLITICO’s Jake Sherman explains how the NSA amendment ever came to have a vote on the House floor despite leadership’s opposition: “If there is one episode that defines John Boehner’s leadership style, it’s how Rep. Justin Amash, the most defiant Republican in the House, won the right to offer a controversial amendment to curb the National Security Agency’s ability to collect phone data from Americans. It left a wide swath of House Republicans scratching their heads.

“Amash (R-Mich.) voted against Boehner for speaker. He votes against the leadership team nearly every day on the House floor. On Monday, the speaker’s office told Amash to approach Boehner in the House chamber to chart a course to offering the amendment to tweak the phone data program. After that phone call, Amash still took to Twitter to threaten leadership that he would bring the bill down.” http://politi.co/13FHjUR

SENATE PASSES STUDENT LOAN OVERHAUL – After months of negotiating and stalling, the Senate passed a student loan agreement. House Speaker John Boehner announced after that the House would act quickly. The LA Times’ Mike Memoli has the details: “A plan to restore lower interest rates on most college loans won Senate approval Wednesday, despite objections from a bloc of Democrats who warned it could ultimately increase the cost of a degree for many students.

“The legislation, which is supported by President Obama and is expected to swiftly pass the House, would reinstate a market-based approach for calculating rates, tying them to the 10-year Treasury note. The new rate for undergraduate Stafford loans would be about 3.8% this year, slightly above the rate that expired July 1. The final vote was 81-18. Sixteen Democrats, joined by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), voted no.” http://lat.ms/1bP6pFH

PENTAGON, SENATE CLASH: The Pentagon is pushing back against proposed rules that would change how the military handles sexual assaults. Patricia Zengerle reports for Reuters: “The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday released letters from Pentagon officials defending the military's system for handling sexual assault cases, fending off a fellow Democratic senator's plan for sweeping changes to deal with the rise in sexual assaults.

“The letters released by Senator Carl Levin raised arguments against a plan from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would shift the decision on whether to pursue sexual assault cases from the victim's commander to an independent military prosecutor. Gillibrand's plan was rejected by the Armed Services Committee last month but is now publicly supported by 43 members of the 100-member Senate.” http://reut.rs/13FHlff

THE STEVE KING FILE -- It was day two of the controversy around Steve King’s remarks that DREAM Act-like legislation shouldn’t be approved because some immigrant children are being used for drug mules. In condemning the remarks, Republican leadership is likely hoping that the story goes away today. But Democrats have been trying to stoke the flames.

-- King defended his comments: “It’s not something that I’m making up,” King told Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson. “This is real.” http://politi.co/144hKja

-- And a bipartisan group of lawmakers slammed him for it: POLITICO-intern-extraordinaire Priya Anand rounds them up: “It’s no wonder that the American people continue to see Republicans as out of touch when comments like these are made,” Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said on the House floor. http://politi.co/13ccGSr

-- For good measure, an American Action Network poll finds King’s district is in favor of the reforms: http://politi.co/13djYW9

DEMS PULL AWAY FROM CENTER – The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin looks at how some Democrats are pulling away from the center. “As President Obama made the case on Wednesday about how the American economy was improving, he went off script to underscore how significant the challenges were that remained. “But — and here’s the big but — I’m here today to tell you that we’re not there yet,” Mr. Obama said, expanding on his prepared text to note that the wealthy are doing better while the middle class is struggling and others are faring worse.

“He did not need to remind many of his fellow Democrats. With Mr. Obama experiencing a difficult first year of his second term and his lame-duck status growing ever nearer, his speech underscored the stirrings of a debate inside the Democratic Party about the party’s economic approach, given the halting recovery.” http://nyti.ms/14Lh6pU

GRASSLEY NOT SIGNING OFF ATF NOMINEE, YET – POLITICO’s Burgess Everett has the exclusive for Huddle: Senator Chuck Grassley isn’t backing away from his strong opposition to ATF nominee Todd Jones. A couple days after he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he doubted he’d block or delay Jones’s progress due to allegations over whistleblower retaliation, Grassley told Huddle that he “misspoke when I said I wasn’t going to object.” That doesn’t mean he’s committed to delaying the nomination, but he’s hanging onto his procedural tools and said there’s a “possibility” he’ll put a hold on Jones. “He’s been accused by whistleblowers and stuff like that,” Grassley said. “We should wait until this investigation and this case on the whistleblowers is over.”

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GOOD THURSDAY MORNING, July 25, 2013, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. I’ve hijacked Huddle for the week while Scott is away. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to ggibson@politico.com. Or follow me on Twitter @GingerGibson to register compliments/complaints there.

TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House meets at 9 a.m. First votes expected between 11 a.m. and noon. The Senate is working as well and expected to vote on NLRB nominees.

AROUND THE HILL – Thursday means it’s taco salad day in both the Senate and House carry outs. At 10:15 a.m. Sens. McCaskill, Ayotte and Tester hold a press conference in room S-207 to discuss military sexual assaults. At 10:45 a.m., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi holds her weekly press briefing in Studio A. Up next at 11:30 a.m., House Speaker John Boehner will hold his weekly press briefing in the same space. At noon, Senate Democratic leadership will hold a press conference on the THUD appropriations bill in the Senate studio. At 12:30 p.m. in Studio A, Rep. Vela will lead the border caucus in a press conference about the economy on the border. Finally, at 1:15 p.m. Reps. Wasserman Schultz, Marino, Meehan and Moore will bring everyone outside to the House Triangle to discuss the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act.

Hearings worth flipping CSPAN on for: At 10:30 a.m., the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on the crisis in Egypt.

The House committees are unlikely to provide much must-see-television tomorrow. But if you’re surfing the live streams and suffer from ophidiophobia, at 10 .m. the House Natural Resources Committee is marking up H.R. 2158, the Expedited Departure of Certain Snake Species Act.

YESTERDAY ON THE FLOOR – The Senate passed a student loan compromise bill 81-18. The House passed the Defense appropriations bill 315-109. The noteworthy amendment to defund the NSA phone collection program was defeated 205-217.

FRATPAC – Bloomberg’s David Glovin takes a deep dive into the world of fraternity lobbying, known as the FratPAC. The loosely organized group is working to undermine legislation that would create financial aid penalties for hazing. “Even as deaths and injuries proliferate at their local chapters, traditional college fraternities resist a federal role in punishing hazing, contending that [Rep. Frederica] Wilson’s proposal would infringe on student rights and that existing state criminal laws are sufficient.” http://bloom.bg/13cbgHC

Democrats are warning about border deaths – The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports, “Border-state Democrats are warning this week that the Senate's immigration reform bill would increase the number of migrant deaths. Behind the leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the lawmakers said the Senate's border-security provisions – sponsored by Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and John Hoeven (N.D.) – would "militarize" the border at the expense of migrant lives.” http://bit.ly/1bjpdxn

SANFORD GOES FOR A RUN – Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) went out for a run yesterday afternoon. Then the House threw everyone’s schedule off and called for votes more than 45 minutes before they were scheduled. Sanford came running into the Capitol and on to the House floor dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and a pair of running shoes. Plus he was clearly drenched in sweat. A colleague was kind enough to lend Sanford a suit jacket, but between votes he lingered in the Speaker’s Lobby and laughed with reporters, clearly slightly embarrassed that he had arrived to do the people’s business in his running apparel. Reporters refrained from making hiking/Appalachian Trail jokes – at least until after he went back on to the floor.

Trayvon Martin’s father addressed the inaugural meeting of the Congressional Caucus on Black Boys and Men: http://politi.co/1dWhKAC

CAROLINE KENNEDY – President Barack Obama will nominate Caroline Kennedy to be ambassador to Japan. The nomination will need Senate approval. http://politi.co/13esNQz

Republicans want more time on DHS nominee – Senate Republicans are pushing for more time consideration of Alejandro Mayorkas to be No. 2 at the Department of Homeland Security. Wapo’s Tom Hamburger and Ben Pershing report: “A growing number of Republicans on Wednesday pressed for a delay in considering the nomination of a senior homeland security official, who is under investigation for allegations that he improperly aided a politically connected firm in gaining U.S. visas for foreign workers.

“The Republicans, led by ranking member Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, wanted to delay a hearing scheduled Thursday for immigration official Alejandro Mayorkas, who has been nominated to be second-in-command at the Department of Homeland Security.” http://wapo.st/15KLkGr

“Matthew Griswold Bevin is not a Kentucky conservative, he is merely an East Coast con man,” Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager, said of the Republican rival. But the Kentucky conservative Benton used to work for — Sen. Rand Paul — had a more positive assessment. Paul’s response when asked about Benton’s “con man” comment: Bevin is actually a “good” man.” http://politi.co/16cUT0I

-- Rangel: Everyone will forget Weiner story: From The Hill’s Daniel Strauss: “Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) predicted the latest sexting scandal engulfing former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will be a non-story by the New York Democratic mayoral primary. Weiner was the front-runner in the mayoral race, according to several polls taken before his admission Tuesday that he exchanged sexually explicit messages and photos with a woman after his resignation from Congress in 2011.” http://bit.ly/165O03t

-- ZOMBIE VOTERS: The Washington Post gives four Pinocchios to claims about all those dead voters in South Carolina. http://wapo.st/15M3XJP

WEDNESDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Casey Becker was the first to email that Andrew Geller was the architect who designed the kitchen where then-Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had the famed “kitchen debate.”

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Tomorrow marks the 39th anniversary of the House Judiciary Committee recommending impeachment for President Richard Nixon. Who was the donor whose name appeared on a cashier’s check that tied the burglars to the White House? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at ggibson@politico.com.

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/

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POLITICO - Congress Feed

U.S. Senate candidate Liz Cheney and her husband were more than two months late paying property taxes on a $1.6 million home they bought last year in the tony northwest Wyoming community of Jackson Hole, according to Teton County records.